STATUS -- : First, yesterday (Wednesday) was just one more chapter in the book about high winds at Andenes. To be fair, though, we were finally able to bring the launcher vertical at the very end of the day (for only the second time in the launch window, which began on Nov 27). So, that was "fun" in some sense. It turned out, though, that the science conditions never really came together and most of our science discussions included words like "ugh" and "blah", which are not good rocket-launching words.

Today, though, was very different. Winds in Andenes were acceptable and we were "green" for launch from the beginning of the day. Of course, that means that skies were cloudy downrange, nobody would expect anything else. The Aurora Gods, though, had decided that they were going to have fun with us beyond just the cloudy skies and managed to shut down the SuperDARN radar in Finland, which we have been using to help identify the location of the cusp. As we approached the end of the launch window, we began seeing some signatures of soft electron precipitation (red aurora) with EISCAT and we decided to bring the count down to T-15 minutes on the off chance that holes might appear in the clouds or something. Sure enough, with one of the many amazing cameras at KHO, we were able to see hints of red aurora leaking through the clouds and these images confirmed the EISCAT observations. Once we saw this, we called for the count to be dropped to T-2 minutes. As the clock ticked away, the aurora stuck around at first, but then slowly got weaker and weaker and we ended up holding at T-2. At that point, we had moved to the very end of the launch window for the day and had to scrub (and it turns out that nothing really developed afterwards anyway). Score for the day...

Aurora Gods: 1
Science Team: 0
..... but this game is FAR from over!!

OUTLOOK -- Unlike my previous outlooks, this one has some texture. In terms of weather, winds in Andenes might be ok for the next several days. Looks like more clouds over Longyearbyen and Ny Alesund, but these forecasts are often wrong. The NOAA Space Weather forecast, though, is promising for the next few days. This is mostly based on the presence of a coronal hole that is well-situated to deliver a High Speed Stream, although I have seen HSS's that have had much more bark than bite in the past. Once that coronal hole rotates a bit more, though, we will probably run into a quiet day or two, until the next active region steps up to the plate. The very last possible day of our launch window is Dec 18, so the clock is ticking.

Previous update -- Back to Update List -- Next update